After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russian football’s national squad was able to take up the mantle as the official successor side of the former USSR national team. However, arguably the greatest ever Soviet team to grace the World Cup was not a Moscow creation – indeed it is often forgotten that the much celebrated USSR team of the Mexico 86 World cup finals was effectively a Ukrainian national side in all but name. Built around the all-conquering Dynamo Kyiv team of the mid-1980s, the Soviet side which Ukrainian coach Valeriy Lobanovskiy took to Mexico 86 and Euro 88 is fondly remembered for its surgically precise football and taste for net-bursting wonder goals. However, few outside of Ukraine realize that this side was actually as Ukrainian as borsch or salo.

Local talisman side Karpaty Lviv booked their place
in the 2010-11 Europa Cup in late April with a
sensational home win over Dynamo Kyiv, denting the
title hopes of the capital’s city’s high-flying league
leaders with a 1-0 victory which all but secured the
West Ukrainian club’s first European campaign in a
decade.

Multiple Olympic champion Yana Klochkova and silver medallist Denis Silantiev held a Lviv swimming master-class in February as part of their nationwide search to promote aquatic sports and uncover the next generation of underwater Olympic champs.

Ukraine’s paralympic team has experienced a major boost in the amount of training and support it receives in recent years as part of a largely unheralded but worthy effort to give the country’s physically disadvantaged athletes every possible advantage on the world stage. The results have been emphatic – since finishing in 21st place in the medal table at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000, Ukraine has rocketed up to sixth and then fourth place at successive Games. Meanwhile, in the Winter Olympics progress has been even more extraordinary – from finishing 18th in Salt Lake City in 2002, Ukraine rose to 3rd (2nd in terms of actual number of medals won) in Turin in 2006.

Ukraine’s national team will go into the coming Euro 2012 European Championships as one of the least favoured host nations in the competition’s history. Unlike Germany in 1988, England in 1996 and Portugal in 2004, few will be expecting Ukraine’s involvement to last long, with the country’s main contribution to the tournament likely to be the actual hosting of matches rather than winning them. However, Ukraine possesses a not-so-secret weapon in the form of the country’s emerging teenage generation, which shot to international recognition in August 2009 by winning UEFA’s Under-19s European Championship. Ukraine’s Euro 2009 youth victory was a major milestone in the development of the country’s footballing infrastructure and was the first victory Ukraine had recorded at any level since entering international football as an independent nation for the first time ever in the mid-1990s. This crop of teenage talent comes from the fast-improving youth team programmes of the country’s leading clubs.